The last eight years in the Nigeria Customs Service have been characterised by undulating performance.

It has been a mixed bag of fortunes and misfortunes, rise and fall and tragicomedy in the performance of the service.

During those years, the rating of the service plummeted in the eye of the public and the stakeholders who were detached from the cold attitude of the top hierarchy of the Customs were not amused.

Most of the policies and actions of the service, most of which were devoid of human face, brought the agency into direct conflict with the public and the stakeholders due to the leadership style of the man who directed the affairs of the service for those years.

During those years, the officers were muffled and the stakeholders were ruffled.

Then came Adewale Adeniyi, the new Sheriff in Town.

Adeniyi ascended the high stool of Customs as the Customs Comptroller General at a time when the morale of officers was at the lowest ebb.

However, his coming, within a year in office,  has brought hope, joy and renewed enthusiasm among the officers while it has sparked off a newfound love among the stakeholders who are elated over the crowning of the home-grown officer.

The fortune of the service which dipped during the last eight years and its public rating which plummeted within that period due to the rein of a non-customs officer as the head, have now suddenly sprang to life with the coming of the new Sheriff.

In June 2023, the appointment of Adeniyi as the new CGC by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu marked a turning point in the affairs of the Customs.

It signalled a rebirth of the service which has been grappling with unfavourable public opinion.

As expected, the appointment of the new Sheriff sparked a spontaneous jubilation and exhilaration among the staff of the service and the stakeholders.

This was expected given the professional acumen of the new CGC and his impressive track record in a service he had held sway for the past 30 years.

Stakeholders, especially the confraternity of the freight forwarders, are unanimous in their assessment of the one year in office of Adeniyi.

Babatunde  Mukaila Abdulazeez, the former  National Secretary of the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) couldn’t hide his feelings over the inspiring leadership of Adeniyi.

“It is a personal roller coaster feeling for me. We have never had it so good.”, he declared when he was asked to assess the performance of Adeniyi in his first year in the saddle as the CGC.

Ada Ozomena Akpunonu, another frontline freight forwarder and a top-notch member of the ANLCA, was no less impressed by the performance of Adeniyi as the CGC.

“He could eventually emerge as the best CGC customs ever had” she declared.

Ibrahim Tanko, the Vice President, the Western Zone of the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF) who is also the National Coordinator of the 100 compliance team of the association, also acknowledged the uncommon professional ingenuity of the new CGC.

“He has done well so far”, he stated tersely.

Dr Boniface Aniebonam, the legendary founder of NAGAFF was no less enamoured by the sparkling leadership qualities of Adeniyi as displayed within his first year in office.

“He is a communication strategist” he declared as a matter of fact.

Adeniyi, as a thoroughbred professional in customs administration and human relations, immediately brought remarkable changes from the stiff and top-of-horse leadership approach of the last eight years.

As an astute public relations expert, Adeniyi immediately went on an extensive engagement with all his officers and critical stakeholders.

He first engaged the powers that be with his direct engagement of Mr President, Governor of Lagos state, Babajide Sanwolu and the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu.

He also paid homage to the traditional rulers, including the Oni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi.

He thereafter engaged the officers, one-on-one at the Headquarters, interacting with them in their various offices under the air of camaraderie, displaying a rare leadership style that was alien in the last years in the service.

He then followed this up with a tour of the commands where he met with the officers before he headed to the border communities where he made a lot of efforts to create an atmosphere of mutual trust, support and harmonious relationship with the host communities and the customs, a vital ingredient that have long been lost to the last eight years of deep-seated suspicion and acrimony that were engendered by the unfriendly posture of the last regime.

Not done, the new CGC also engaged the members of the maritime media, his constituency during his almost two-decade-long impressive rein as the super public relations officer of the service.

Adeniyi was not unmindful of his counterpart across the border in the Benin Republic to whom he paid homage in a bid to foster a harmonious working relationship that would promote trade and discourage smuggling between the two West African neighbours.

The lawmakers were also not left out in his extensive and strategic engagement as he hosted the members of the Senate Committee on Customs.

In addition, members of various government organizations and private bodies tasted the irresistible lure of Wale’s hospitality.

He didn’t leave the freight forwarders out of his public engagement as he made direct contact with them in their areas of operations.

Adeniyi also reinvigorated the  Corporate Social Responsibility(CRS) of the service by visiting a motherless baby home in Ibadan where he promised to reactivate the milk of human kindness in the Customs under his leadership.

There was hardly any segment of society that Adeniyi did not court its cooperation and support to have an inclusive administration that is anchored on the goodwill of the people.

Adeniyi also thrust the NCS to the consciousness of the global community with his visit to China recently where he sold the boulstered the international image of the agency.

That is the hallmark of leadership excellence.

Adeniyi, as a versatile public relations expert, achieved a dual purpose with this extensive and strategic engagement.

First, he used it to reunite the customs with the critical stakeholders who had hitherto felt alienated by the detached managerial style of the last administration in customs.

Secondly, it used the engagement to launch the customs into a new path of operational rebirth where the new management he leads will carry out its onerous task with full cooperation and collaboration of critical stakeholders.

Similarly, the disbandment of the controversial CGC strike force and streamlining of the mushroom customs checkpoints has also endeared the new Sheriff to the stakeholders, especially the freight forwarders, who had had cause to complain in the past about the excesses of those special forces.

According to Babatunde Mukaila Abdulazeez “It is a personal roller coaster feeling for me. We had never had it so good

“Wale has shown that he has the capacity and what it takes to take Nigeria Customs to the next level.

“He has shown that Nigeria can be at par with the rest of the advanced world in the deployment of trade tools.

“Within his first year in office,  he has shown uncommon courage, commitment and uncanny knowledge of customs operations and processes that are meant to facilitate trade.

“For instance, he introduced what is called the Advance Ruling which holds Customs officers accountable for whatever their position is on pre-importation requests.

“I can tell you that it takes courage to do that as no officer would want to be held responsible for his action.

“But Adeniyi has done that. He was the first CG to bell the cat on this novel idea. This shows his courage and passion to transform customs.

“Also, he introduced another novel idea by partnering with the Japanese government to establish a laboratory for Nigeria Customs.

“The issue of argument on chemical imports will be a thing of the past. This will not only help the customs but the NAFDAC as well.

“Adeniyi, in his first one year in office, has shown us that he knows what needs to be done and that he is a core professional customs officer.

“We can only pray for him to succeed. He has put on the table accountability and transparency, he declared

For Ada Ozomena Akpunonu, Wale is a professional customs officer and “we all know his rich antecedents”

“Unfortunately, he came at a time when Nigeria’s economy is in comatose. This will make his task a bit difficult.

“For instance, the exchange rate is too high and the Customs duties are equally high which have both combined to make goods clearance at the port very exorbitant.

“Wale is a team player. He carries everyone along.

“Through the deployment of his Area Controllers, he has shown the depth of his managerial acumen because his men at the Area Commands are square pegs in square holes.

“By the time he spends four year in office,  he will perform wonders. The atmosphere in the customs now is that of conviviality and sanity.

“If not for the instability of the naira and the bastardized economy, Wale could emerge as the best CGC ever.

Ibrahim Tanko believed Wale is doing well as the CGC.

“He has done well in terms of reducing the bottleneck in clearance procedures by reducing the number of units.

“For instance, he has disbanded the notorious CG strike force as well as border drills.

“He is also working hard to restore the core values of the Federal Operations Units ( FOUs) of the service by enhancing their professionalism.

“He is also doing well in the area of checking the excesses of officers.

“He is also doing well in attending to pending cases such as seizures, detentions, dismissals and suspensions.

“However, I would like him to define and delineate the functions of Customs Police, FOU and Provosts.

”

Their functions and duties should be well-defined and clearly stated to avoid overlap and clash.

Boniface Aniebonam said Wale is a master communication strategist.

” I commend him on the disbandment of the CG strike force.”The interventionist squad had abused the customs process under previous customs administrations.

“We appreciate him for that. He should also take a very strong stance against avoidable trade alerts from different customs units.

“This does not facilitate trade. He should coordinate and hamonise the alert system and I know as a listening officer, he shall look into this disturbing issue.

“There are lot to still be done. However, his one year in office is well and good.

“He should, however, contact critical stakeholders and partner them by using established platforms such as ANLCA and NAGAFF to reach out to the trading public.

“His one year in office has been avoidably aggressive in revenue target and collection.”But the modern-day customs practice is not about revenue but trade facilitation.

”If you raise the compliance level of the trading public, this will lead to high revenue. He should de-emphasize revenue and emphasize trade facilitation which leads to high revenue” retorted Aniebonam.

Adeniyi also showed his vast understanding of customs operations when he made trade facilitation the fulcrum of his administration.

All over the world, the Customs has duties to facilitate trade, collect revenue, detect and prevent smuggling, with none of the functions running counter against the others.

But over the years, especially in the last eight years, trade facilitation has been subjugated to revenue collection to the chagrin of stakeholders, but the decision of the new CAC not to injure trade facilitation in pursuit of revenue and smugglers is welcomed by the appreciative freight forwarders.

It is more gratifying to note that the new CGC has promised to break away from the past crude method of anti-smuggling tactics which had led to the avoidable death of officers and innocent people.

He hoped to achieve this by relying more on the deployment of technology which will maximise performance and minimise casualties.

The triumph of brain over brawn.

As the 14th indigenous Comptroller-General of Customs and 31st since its establishment in 1891, Wale Adeniyi, a brilliant public relations expert who is well grounded in Customs operations, is fast becoming a new face of the customs, a beckon of hope for the officers and stakeholders who have been yarning for a change from the last eight years of mutual suspicion and acrimony between the customs and its publics.

Stakeholders have therefore hailed the  Nigerian Customs Service Act, especially Section 14(1)(a) of the Act,  which states that “The President shall appoint a career officer from the Service, not below the rank of Assistant-Comptroller General (who shall be responsible for the overall management of the service) and be accountable for all revenue collections and all expenditures made under this Act”.

It was this new Act that enabled President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to discover and unleash the talents and professional acumen of Wale Adeniyi on the customs for maximum impact.

Until his appointment, Adeniyi was in charge of Strategic Research and Policy at the Customs Headquarters in Abuja.

A professional who is conscious of the need to build a solid image for the agency, Adeniyi once served as customs spokesman for almost two decades until January 2017 when he was redeployed to the Apapa Area Command as a Deputy Comptroller.

He was promoted to the rank of Comptroller in 2017 and appointed Deputy Commandant of the Nigeria Customs Command and Staff College, Gwagwalada, Abuja.In 2019, he was redeployed to serve as the Controller of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA) Command, Lagos where he made the famous seizure of $8.07m cash.

He was promoted to the rank of Assistant Comptroller General in February 2020 shortly after he supervised the seizure of $8.07 million cash being illegally taken out of Nigeria through the E-Wing of the international airport tarmac.

 He was subsequently posted to head the Nigeria Customs Command and Staff College, Gwagwalada, Abuja as Commandant.

In recognition of his service, former President Muhammadu Buhari, on October 11, 2022, conferred the national honour of Member of the Order of the Federal Republic (MFR) on Adeniyi.

Stakeholders are unanimous in their conviction that the Nigeria Customs Service will witness a galloping development, turn around of fortunes and professional excellence under the stewardship of  Adeniyi.